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Review: Evolution Revolution by Robert Winston

By Vivienne Greig

We are so accustomed to the notion of evolution that we forget how apposite and utterly revolutionary Darwin’s idea was. Robert Winston‘s clear and careful prose in Evolution Revolution is an apt reminder.

The book’s target audience is children, hence the step-by-step experiments in the style of the children’s television programme Blue Peter, but don’t let that put you off&colon; there is some pretty sophisticated stuff here.

Take the worker honeybees with the same father who as super-sisters share 75 per cent of their genes&colon; by ensuring these sisters reach adulthood, more of their own genes get passed on in the hive.

Winston covers all the bases, from Lamarck‘s notions on the origins of simple organisms through to the intricacies of genetics, and he also touches on speciation, shrinking biodiversity, genetic drift, even the ethics of selecting “desirable” traits in your children.

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I wouldn’t be surprised if the book inspires any number of wannabe Darwins&colon; bag yourself a copy before they are all gone.